


Smoke on the Water

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adult Healing, Childhood emotional abuse, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:43:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9366524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Another post-Final Problem story about the Holmes family from Mycroft's POV, story told through Sherlock's POV. This is edgy, and Sherlock's POV is almost never entirely in congruence with my own, though it's closer this time than often. Just be aware I have always considered Sherlock, even at his most perceptive, an unreliable witness/narrator. There are always the bits he misses.Like much of my work it is associated with other bits of art. Read the notes if you want to know what that's all about...





	

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,  
Lingering onward dreamily  
In an evening of July —  
  
Children three that nestle near,  
Eager eye and willing ear,  
Pleased a simple tale to hear —  
  
Long has paled that sunny sky:  
Echoes fade and memories die:  
Autumn frosts have slain July.  
  
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,  
Alice moving under skies  
Never seen by waking eyes.

Excerpt, "A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky," Lewis Carroll, Concluding poem of  _Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There._

 

  
"He's not coming," John said, dismissively. "Greg, yeah. Your brother? Not so much." He glanced around the gutted room, at the smoke-blackened walls and the destruction. "Not his kind of place, now, is it? He pays for this sort of mess at a nice, safe distance."

"He'll come," Sherlock said. "He may not stay long. He may not do much. But he'll come."

Only he didn't. Greg showed up, and knelt in the cinders sweeping up debris. Molly, bless her, came. Mrs. Hudson displayed complex interest, an owner and a friend both, clucking and scolding and approving all at once. Mycroft did not arrive.

"He'll be here," Greg said, his voice quiet and certain. "Not going to stay long. It's got him wound up right and proper. But he'll come."

"Believe it when I see it, mate," John said, smug and angry at the same time.

The sitter came and dropped off Rosie. The bathroom, still functional and shielded from damage by the intervening walls, was put to use as, one after another, the volunteer renovation gang went in to clean up before retreating to the nearest pub for dinner. Only as the sun went down, sending shards of light through the boards covering the windows, was there the sound of a door opening below, and the three-beat advance of Mycroft and his umbrella on the stairs. 

Greg glanced victoriously at Sherlock, who passed the glance uneasily to a scowling John. Then the steps slowed on the stairs.

Sherlock, Rosie on his hip, moved toward the entry, only to be cut off by Greg, who hurried to the top of the stair.

"There you are, then," he said, voice hearty with a false enthusiasm. "Knew you'd make it."

There was a pause, then Mycroft, voice tense, responded, "You know better than I do, then. I am quite unsure I will manage the rest of the way. The scent is appalling."

John scoffed under his breath, then called, "No need, you know, if it's too much for your refined Holmes sensibilities."

"You're fine," Greg said, more loudly, annoyance percolating under his good-natured, bluff manner. "Here. Lemme give you a hand. That's right."

The steps resumed, more slow and hesitant...and the two men came in, Greg leading, one hand around Mycroft's arm, just above the elbow. "Here," Greg continued. "You can see we've made a lot of progress today."

Mycroft's eyes flicked around the room, catching detail after detail. "So I see," he said. He sounded unconvinced, and John set his jaw, looking away, then back to Sherlock with a "get him out of my space" glare. But Sherlock saw what John could not--the racing pulse at Mycroft's collar, the tense grip on the umbrella handle, the flare of his nostrils catching the scent of smoke everywhere.

"We're on the way to the pub," he cut in quickly, jigging baby Rosie to make her chuckle. "Pint and some pub food. Come along with us, Mycroft."

The feelings that flashed were confusing--hard for Sherlock even now. Anger from John, and he hated anger from John. Gratitude from Mycroft--and he was utterly unused to that, slain by the fragile hunger he'd never noted or understood before. Approval from Lestrade such as he'd never experienced even in the old days, on his best case ever. Mrs. Hudson frowned, but let it pass. Molly smiled shyly, and seconded the invitation. 

"We're going to the Five Stars," she said, softly. "The've got a few good house brews, including a nice lager, and their steak and mushroom pie's a treat. come along, do."

Mycroft nodded, then said, voice too tight, "I'll meet you on the pavement, then..." and retreated.

John's glance was all "I told you so." Greg, however, said, "He made it. Give 'im credit, Sherlock..." It was a plea, not a command. "This--he remembers things."

"Who doesn't?" John's tones were dismissive. "We can't all afford to be precious snowflakes. Some of us just have to get on with it, don't we?"

Sherlock, frowning, said only, "I'm going to walk over with Mycroft. I'll meet you there," then handed Rosie to John and rattled down the stairs, glad he'd showered first.

Mycroft was waiting in front of the house, prodding forlornly at something in the gutter with his umbrella.

"Lucky Strikes," he said, as Sherlock approached. "The better part of a pack. Who smokes American cigarettes around here?"

"No one," Sherlock said, glancing down. "It washed down the street from beyond, I suspect."

"No. Too intact. It's not seen much wet or friction," Mycroft said. "Perhaps my American associates continue to keep you under surveillance."

"No. They smoke Marlborough, Camels, and one of them has taken up Dunhills since coming to the UK."

"Ah. Going native," Mycroft said, a quick smile flashing and then gone. "So sad when the barriers fall..."

"Yes. Indicates a weakness of moral fiber," Sherlock agreed, cheekily. "Come along. I've made myself a bet we can be there and have the first drinks round ordered before anyone but Mrs. Hudson, and she'll cheat by driving over." He swung down the pavement toward the Five Stars. Only when Mycroft joined him, pacing at his side, did he say, "What was wrong up there?"

"The smoke," Mycroft said. "It--I was the first one awake when..." He broke off, then said in a firmer voice. "I worked it out. Mummy would save Eurus; Father would save you, and it was my job to go ahead and find the safest way out. The smoke was everywhere. In the end we had to go out the back, through the kitchens." He sniffed, then. "Not that it matters. It was years ago, and it all came round right in the end, didn't it?" The complex ironies in that sentence were not lost even on Sherlock.

"I don't remember it very well," Sherlock said. Then, embarrassed, added, "Part of the deletion, I suppose."

"You were young. And already traumatized. I suppose your memories are almost all of the Dower House."

"Yes."

They walked together, silent for a time. Reaching the pub, Sherlock set Mycroft to establish a large enough set of tables together, while he placed the drinks order and collected his and Mycroft's early. He went back to find two tables pushed together under a wide window that looked out on the street, with Mycroft gazing out at the passing world.

"That one's just lost her job," Mycroft said, idly. "And the one in the amazingly rural Wellies is visiting a house with a newborn, and has brought presents."

"Not just presents--Christening presents," Sherlock said, with the wisdom gained from seeing Rosie's white and iridescent wrappings with gleaming silver-and-snow ribbons come through at the time of her baptism.

"Ah, yes. Duly noted," Mycroft drawled. Then he said, "I wish you remembered. It was such a lovely home..."

Sherlock frowned, trying to place the melancholy...

Longing. Mycroft longed for Musgrave. Hungered for it...

"What was it like?"

"I told you--always honey for tea." Mycroft sighed. "That wonderful folly of a cemetery. Green fields. The ocean on the western boundary--we spent hours by the sea. We had a superb cook, and she set up the most marvelous picnics. Father and Mummy would take us down to the seaside. You and Victor would play on the rocks, conquering them and planting your flags. It was a golden time. Nothing--nothing was the same, after."

Sherlock grunted, and thought about it, trying to put it together, contemplating all he knew.

Fat little Mycroft, too tall, too round, and so very ginger. Pictures had told him that, and memories from the early days at the Dower House. 

"Did you play with us?"

Mycroft shrugged. "I looked after you. It wasn't easy--you and Victor were little wild things, and Eurus..." He stared out blankly, no longer seeing the street, but things in the past. He shivered, and changed the subject. "I taught you all how to cipher. Eurus was better than me, of course, once she caught the knack. In truth, she was better at everything once she caught the knack. She was the genius. I was the smart one. Mummy said you were an old soul. I was never sure which of you she loved best--Eurus for her brains, or you for your drama..."

Not, apparently, Mycroft for his own intelligence, or his willingness, or his wisdom...

"What went wrong between you and Mummy?"

"I haven't the faintest," Mycroft said, still gazing out onto the street. "I was fat, and quite ugly, and I had no social skills. But...I'm fairly sure there were miscarriages between me and you. I have long thought it possible that her original choice to leave her profession to become a mother may have been less voluntary than she now claims--that I was unexpected, and once born proved to be quite a let-down. But honestly, I don't know. I...fell short of her imagined ideal. You and Eurus did not. Under the circumstances the question became what earthly use I might be. The answer was usually no use at all, beyond a bit of light child minding I seldom got right. You and Eurus were complicated children to mind."

Yes, Sherlock thought, remembering his sister as an adult. We would have been, wouldn't we?

"Mrs. Hudson approaches--I assume there's a small car park in the back alley, behind the pub?"

"Yes."

"Then you are correct--she drove in the Aston Martin. Well spotted."

"The tequila monstrosity is hers," Sherlock said, pointing his sharp chin at the tall glass on the tray. "That thing that looks like the offspring of a traffic light--all red and yellow and orange with green trim."

Mycroft nodded, grabbed the glass, and raised it to the approaching woman, and she pounced, already in full monologue...and Sherlock learned nothing more that night. When he did it wasn't from Mycroft.

"He was a difficult boy to understand," Father said, weeks later, having come down alone from the Dower House. "All that brain, and no words. Or manners. Or posture. He hunkered over his food and never looked up from his plate. He was...sly. Defensive. He seemed to live at the periphery, even before things got muddled."

"Muddled?"

"Muddled,"  Father said, firmly, as though by using the word he could make the many sorrows and confusions it covered disappear. 

"Such as?"

"Your mother had difficulty, for a long time. We had hoped... _she_ had hoped for a large family. A happy basket of puppies, she used to say. Poor thing. It was hard for her. Mike was scarcely a happy puppy, and then the miscarriages... Mike never seemed to understand what she wanted from him. She'd smile and he'd scowl and step back. She'd try to help him lose weight, and he'd hoard puddings under his bed and eat them in the middle of the night. She'd try to get him to study piano, or draw, or perform, and he'd sit there for hours like a red-haired savage frowning at his own fingers and not bothering to even try."

"Was he autistic?"

Father blinked, then said, wearily, "I... I have no idea. It never seemed to come up, then. Back then children weren't autistic. At least--we thought he was a bit slow. If we'd thought anyone was...unfit. The way Eurus proved to be.  Well. We'd thought perhaps Mike."

"Idiot boy," Sherlock asked, voice dry.

Father shrugged. "He was so hard to reach. What's this about, Sherlock? You've known Mycroft all your life. I'd think it was Eurus you'd want to know about." He sighed, and squirmed in the sofa. "So many years lost. Stolen from us. We always wanted a daughter, and she was...incandescent."

"She murdered my best friend, set the house on fire, she tormented me and John and Mycroft. She's the ultimate cause of almost every difficulty I have faced the past five years." Sherlock stirred restlessly and forced himself to say what he would have denied with all his heart and soul previously. "On the other hand, Mike saved my life, over and over. Much of what I now have, I owe him--and I never understood who he was. Forgive me if I feel a belated desire to fill in the picture. What did he like?"

"Books. Walks on the shore. For a time I thought he might be interested in biology--but it turned out he only liked finding cockles and oysters and eating them raw on the beach with a bit of smuggled bread and butter. He could be so slow, then bury you in hours of technical chatter about the most peculiar things."

"Did he have any friends?"

"No. There weren't many children around Musgrave, before the Trevors moved into the old Bailey house. There was Victor, of course, and an older sister, but no one Mike's age, and from his general luck with other children I doubt he'd have had much luck in any case."

Sherlock looked at his father in exasperation. "What did you and Mummy do for him? About him? I remember hours of violin lessons with Mummy going on and on that she would not let me lose that skill, as though it was..." he stopped.

"Yes," Father said, wearily. "You showed so little sign of remembering, and as you forgot it seemed like we lost more and more of Eurus. The music helped us. Those five years with the two of you--those were the golden years. The golden memories. So happy..."

It lanced through Sherlock...

They never abused Mycroft. Not in the normally meant sense. But if ever a child had been given to the wrong parents, at the wrong time, with the wrong personality...

"He was smart," Sherlock said. "And lonely. And he had no skills for people. It wasn't his fault."

Father set his chin. "Nor ours. Mummy tried so hard. To help him talk. Smile. Stand. To keep him on a diet."

"While putting honey on the table every day at tea?"

"Yes, but I quite like honey," Father said, bewildered. "And you and Eurus loved it..."

Sherlock gave up. Instead he took his father over to John's, and watched as the older man smiled and laughed and bounced little Rosie on his knee, beaming at her clever, bright eyes and golden hair, laughing at every baby chortle. 

Who had wanted a stolid, quiet, sturdy little boy who didn't know how to laugh, and probably had not chortled once in his life?

 

"How's he doing, Greg?"

Lestrade, dressed in a windbreaker, shoved his hands into his pockets and looked out over St. James park, in easy walking distance of Mycroft's London flat on Pall Mall. "He's coming around. I...if i were a social worker I'd wish he had a better support network--and I'm not saying that to accuse you. Just--didn't anyone ever give a damn about the lad, other than that damned Uncle of yours?"

"I think he was not what my parents understood or were prepared for."

"He looked after you, you know. Tried to keep Eurus from hurting you, even then. Tried to keep you both out of trouble. He remembers. Sometimes i can make him talk about it. That red setter of the Trevors'--the one you apparently used to replace the boy's memory--it went missing one day, and Mycroft walked miles before finding it out on the wold tied under a tree with a pile of grass beside it. Apparently you and Trevor had decided it was a cow to be rustled...then forgot when the game changed halfway through. He let it go and brought it back and never said a word when your mother got after him for failing to watch you and Victor and Eurus. The way he remembers it, no matter how hard he tried, what he did was never what she thought he should have done."

"Mummy..." Sherlock sighed, and tossed a pebble at a squirrel. "In retrospect I am not sure what Mummy wanted, or thought. At the time I thought it quite sure proof Mycroft was careless, indifferent, and perhaps wanted me dead."

"They blamed him, you know. He was supposed to keep an eye on you the day Victor went missing. From what I understand, their first suspicion was Mike had done something to the boy. Well--who wouldn't. You know it. I know it. If it's between the pretty five-year-old girl and the socially backward lout of a twelve-year-old boy, who are the police going to investigate first? Apparently it was your Uncle Rudy who established an alibi, a fragment at a time, proving Mike couldn't have done it." He scowled. "And then he arranged for Eurus to leave--and then he stuck Mike with the secret and the cover story and the job of keeping track of you and trying to figure out if you were going to be like Eurus..." He looked at Sherlock, then, hands still stuffed in his pockets, expression complex and ambiguous. "If I could go back in time I swear I'd nut 'im, cold-cock 'im, and leave 'im to rot."

Sherlock nodded. "I never understood until I saw Mummy take Mycroft apart over Eurus being alive. I understand, now. I just can't change it."

"Makes me want a Tardis."

"Probably a fixed point," Sherlock pointed out. "A man like Mike? He's too important to risk jiggering time for."

Greg sighed.

Sherlock studied him--and was glad that, after all these years, Mycroft finally had someone who'd stand for him.

 

"I'm going to the zoo, brother-mine," Mycroft said, dressed in a light spring suit of sandy beige with flecks of green and fuchsia threaded through the yarns. "Would you like to go with me?"

Sherlock stared at him. He himself was dressed in his dressing gown and little else, and the sight of his brother at his door, chipper and alert and...what? Cocky? Downright...spunky?

"It's too early in the day for this, Mycroft," he mumbled. "Are you sure you don't mean to go light up Rosie Watson's life? She's getting to the age of appreciating elephants."

Hurt flickered, and passed as Mycroft realized the "elephants" had not been meant to suggest him. He smirked. "I'm not good with infants, Sherlock."

"I'm not good with sunlight before noon. As for wholesome activities like zoo-going? Only if there's a case ranked higher than a seven."

Mycroft seemed to wilt a little. "Ah. Yes. Very well." He turned and started down the stairs, no longer so light or bouncing as when he'd arrived.

"Why?" Sherlock called after him.

He turned. "What?"

"Why the zoo?"

"Because I never went as a boy?"

No, Sherlock thought. That couldn't be true. "I went. I know I went."

"That was at the Dower House," Mycroft said, as though it had nothing to do with him or his boyhood. "No. Musgrave was too far from any major town to have a zoo, and there were none of those game-reserve things that are popular now."

Sherlock would never trade Musgrave for the Dower House. But he could hear the longing for the old estate in Mycroft's words. Or was it the longing for the life before Eurus crossed all the lines. Before Victor disappeared. Before the fire. Before...everything. A longing for the place where there were still no secrets, and no sister in a holding cell far below ground level, and no Uncle asking him to carry a burden his parents should have carried. Where there were puddings to hide under the bed, and honey for tea, and if no one loved him, at least no one had handed him the keys to hell and expected him to keep them safe.

He looked at his brother, and said, softly. "There are pengwings at the London zoo. Did you know?" He used the old, fond pronunciation of his childhood, that Mycroft had often teased him for.

"I'm Wikipedia," Mycroft said, smirking "Of course I knew."

"Come in. I'll get dressed." He watched as Mycroft hesitated, and said, gently, "We've managed to air it pretty well. Still traces of smoke. Bit it's almost gone. Come up and have a cuppa. I need a shower."

Mycroft met his eyes. His tongue flicked out, dabbing his lips, and Sherlock could, finally, see all the emotion behind the stoic, still face. At last he said, "Very well. For the chance to see the pengwings." He strode up the stairs in firm resolve, stepped into the room, and took a wary, reflexive breath...letting it out slowly.

"Better than it was," he said, but it was clear the scent still lingered, obvious to those not used to it.

"Think of it as wood smoke at a beach fire."

"No." He went to the kitchen, grimaced at the clutter of lab gear, then found the kettle and clean cups and the tea. "Maybe the scent of old fires at Holmescroft. Every time I go in I can smell old yule logs burned in the Middle Ages. I swear it."

"It's neo-gothic, Mycroft. At best you're smelling a blend of Victorian coal and applewood trimmings from your orchards." Sherlock retreated to the bathroom, and from there into the shower.

Mycroft was doing better. He was up here, surrounded by the smell of smoke--the smell of his old home burning. His childhood, pitiful though it had been, going down in flames. It wasn't necessarily recovery, but it was strength returning.

He dressed himself in his favorite--the lean trousers, the tight shirt, the light sport jacket. He and Mycroft, two different styles entirely. They ambled together, both tall, both slim, both well-dressed. Posh men taking in the sights. They went up Baker Street, cut over to Park Road, to the Outer Circle, and into Regent's Park.

It was good weather; soft weather, overcast enough to spare them too much sun, but not threatening worse than mist. 

"We must make sure you get to see the reptile house," Sherlock said, risking teasing his brother...a risk he'd been afraid of since Eurus.

Mycroft shot him a side-eyed glare of mock affront. "And you must see the anteaters, my nosy brother."

"You're the one with the nose."

"And you have the otter-face."

They pointedly avoided smiling at each other...or pretended to not-smile. Mainly they grinned and failed to admit it.

"I'm sorry I didn't see how bad things were for you all these years," Sherlock said, as they leaned together at the bear enclosure. 

"It wasn't as though I was inviting observation."

"No."

"What you don't ask for, you probably won't get."

"No...I suppose not. But...I'm still sorry."

Mycroft grunted. "I hear the pengwings are lovely at this time of year, before their foliage starts to turn."

Sherlock splorted, and realized how much he loved his shy, emotionally deflecting brother.

"Yes," he said. "Though they're sweeter in spring, when the sap is running."

And then Mycroft laughed, in the smoky, hazy light of late afternoon, and Sherlock decided it was going to be all right. Or close enough to pass for all right.

 

We ended up at the Grand Hotel  
It was empty, cold and bare  
But with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside  
Making our music there  
With a few red lights, a few old beds  
We made a place to sweat  
No matter what we get out of this  
I know, I know we'll never forget  
  
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky  
Smoke on the water

Excerpt from "Smoke on the Water," Deep Purple

 

**Author's Note:**

> As indicated the two works of art associated with this are the eponymous "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, and the first verses of "A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky," by Louis Carroll. It starts with the second, and ends with the first, and in spite of all intuitive expectation, it begins in ominous dismay, and ends in optimism.
> 
> The first poem, to me, has ironic overtones, though I deeply doubt Louis Carroll meant the poem that way. It is his ode to, and elegy to, the time he spent with the young Liddell sisters, and specifically with Alice Pleasance Liddell. It frames the days they were together, boating, with the girls pestering the author for the stories that became "Alice in Wonderland," and "Through the Looking Glass," as a golden summer idyll, a time of innocent halcyon joy under a blue sky, on clean, familiar waters.
> 
> It hides darker realities. There has always been some question about Charles Lutwidge Dodson's relationship to young girls. I myself tend to subscribe to the notion that technically no abuse occurred, in the sense of willing sexual advances, malicious intent, or behavior either Dodson or the children would have clearly understood as being worthy of "stranger danger." I also, however, think that when Dodson behaved within the exacting limits imposed by Victorian society, while worshipping at the altar of innocence, beauty, childish purity, and sweetness, he was encouraged by his own culture to misunderstand his own motives. The rules of Victorian society made it too easy for him to mistake desire--and a creepy, stalkery desire--for legitimate sentimental adoration of innocence and beautiful, girlish intelligence and charisma. I suspect he wanted very much to be a good man, and within the rules of the time mostly managed it. However, he was also repeatedly found unsettling. The Liddells ultimately barred him from contact with their daughters...and i suspect I would have made similar choices. Certainly not sent him out unchaperoned in a boat on the Isis with little girls...
> 
> I picked it, though, because one can't be sure. Liddell appears to have remained sufficiently within the limits imposed by a very rigid culture, and appears to have been himself unaware of covert sexual longings--or of anything inappropriate in a grown man so idolizing pre-pubertal women. And the hundreds of girls he came into contact with over a long life not only survived--many thrived under his vigorous, humorous, dedicated approval and admiration of their minds and spirit. He loathed little boys, but adored little girls, and he loved writing them puzzles, riddling games, ciphers, logical conundrums... In the end it was what it was. The girls lived and prospered, Carroll appears never to have done anything to make himself or anyone else truly sure his motives were weird as socks for serpents, and we got two of the great classics of fantasy literature out of the deal. So it goes. And yet, I can't look at the underlying currents without seeing something darker beneath the ripples, something sadder and less lovely than Carroll's idyll suggests.
> 
> "Smoke on the Water," however, seems ominous--dark, omened, driving. The story is in the lyrics, about a band going to make some music at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, only to have some idiot with a flare torch the studio. But in spite of flames, and smoke, and people in need of rescue, and limited time, they make some really good music, and follow up with a rock classic whose opening riffs are so familiar most of us of my generation know immediately what turf we are on one chord in...two at most. It's a story of richness out of adversity, and dark omens turned to victory. It seemed fitting for all the elements in play here, from Mycroft's golden memories of his childhood corrupted by hurt and abuse and death and confusion and burdens, to the smoky, gritty restructuring being done at Baker Street to bring Sherlock and John back into business--and into whole life again.
> 
> So. In the end I find Carroll's sunshine and ripples dark, and "Smoke on the Water" bright and joyful, and why...  
> Well. I hope why is clear in the nature of the story. Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this.


End file.
